


Hoodie

by the_ocean_burned



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: (because that's like all i write lmao), Angst, Angst and Fluff, Boyfriend Hoodie trope, Chickens, Cuddling, Fluff, M/M, Not Beta Read, Pining, and i'm writing them cuddling, but like, it's a Small Angst, lots of introspection on Ronan's part (unsurprisingly), mostly to make myself feel better about being touch-starved lmao, not edited, rip sorry this is probably full of typos, that's really all this is, there are chickens at one point, theyre touch starved, uhh, very minor angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-05
Updated: 2017-09-05
Packaged: 2018-12-24 04:41:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12005229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_ocean_burned/pseuds/the_ocean_burned
Summary: Adam is away at college, and Ronan misses him.





	Hoodie

Ronan still wasn’t quite used to waking up alone.

Because he and Adam were both massively touch-starved, they spent as much time as they could touching in some way whenever they were together. Holding hands, leaning against one another as they watched TV, curling into each other as they slept. They had spent the previous summer practically attached at the hip – more so than usual, anyway. It had been – not nice. _Fantastic_ was probably a better word, Ronan thought, but he wasn’t going to waste too much time worrying about it. Adam was the one who wanted to be a lawyer. Ronan would leave the wordplay to him.

But Adam had to go to school eventually, and Ronan was definitively _not_ going to school anymore, so they had to come to terms that they’d have to learn to live without constant affection for a few months. Well, Ronan had to come to terms with it. He felt selfish for wanting Adam to stay at the Barns, but there was a part of Ronan that was saying that once Adam left, once Adam realized how many options he had and how many people wanted to date him, he would leave Ronan for someone better. Someone with healthier coping mechanisms and less mental issues and someone who lived in a place that wasn’t painfully close to Henrietta, Virginia. Someone who was smarter and less abrasive and kinder and more supportive than Ronan.

 _In other words,_ Ronan muttered in his head, _literally anyone else._

He hadn’t said a word of this to Adam, of course. Ronan was sure Adam had figured out that Ronan was quietly stressing about _something,_ but he was confident that Adam didn’t know what it was. That was the way Ronan wanted it. Adam had been anxious as it was about the idea of going to an Ivy League school – _I’m good with tests, but what if I’m not good with applying what they teach me?_ Adam had worried aloud – and he didn’t need to be concerned about Ronan, too.

Besides, if Ronan kept his concerns to himself, that made him less selfish, in theory, and wouldn’t that make Adam less inclined to think that Ronan wasn’t worth his time? But Ronan was still worried that he was replaceable, not worth Adam’s time, and that made waking up alone that much worse.

It had been a month since Adam had left for college, and Ronan was having a harder time adjusting than he would ever admit. He missed Adam far more than he had thought he would, even though Ronan had learned to suck it up and use his phone so that he and Adam could communicate daily. Calling Adam just wasn’t the same as being able to lean over the table and kiss him. What really made waking up hellish, though, was that for a split second before reality set in, Ronan was able to delude himself into believing Adam was there, an arm slung over Ronan’s waist and Adam’s breathing brushing softly against the back of Ronan’s neck. But Ronan would inevitably open his eyes and Adam would not be there.

It hurt Ronan more than he would have liked to admit.

The worst part was that Ronan felt _guilty_ for missing Adam as much as he did. He knew he shouldn’t, but he did, because he also knew that Adam was happy at college. Adam was constantly sending Ronan pictures of weird shirts his professors were wearing, or of his study group, or of black birds around campus. The last kind was always captioned _tell chainsaw I still love her._

Adam was finally, _finally,_ happy, and Ronan was there to see it. In theory, that meant that Ronan should be happy, too. And to an extent, he was. He was glad Adam was happy. If anyone deserved to be content, it was Adam. But there was also a desperate, anxious longing nestled behind Ronan’s lungs. Ronan couldn’t help but wonder if it was that feeling that had driven Gansey into spending most of his life searching for a lost Welsh king.

It was cold and grey when Ronan woke up – a typical autumn morning for middle-of-nowhere Virginia. As usual, there was that hateful millisecond where Ronan thought that Adam was with him, and then the moment dissipated and Ronan hated himself again.

Ronan rolled out of bed, wincing when his feet hit the floor harder than intended, and groped around for something thicker than the white tank-top he had worn to bed. His fingers found the soft fabric of a sweatshirt and he shrugged it on, yawning quietly. Still half-asleep, Ronan tugged on a pair of sweatpants and muck boots, then went out to feed the animals.

It was only as he was scattering feed for the chickens that Ronan realized that the sweatshirt he was wearing wasn’t his. For one thing, it was bigger than Ronan’s normally were – not like that was a bad thing, as Ronan had always loved baggy sweatshirts. For another, it didn’t smell like the Barns. It smelled like _Adam._ Ronan could smell gasoline and Cabeswater and something that made him think of Adam’s freckles. Looking down, Ronan found that it had a Harvard emblem on the front. Yeah, _definitely_ not Ronan’s sweatshirt.

Ronan smiled. He continued feeding the chickens. The morning had improved.

Over the next couple of weeks, Ronan took to wearing Adam’s sweatshirts more and more often. He hadn’t left very many, since winter was approaching quickly, but that was fine. There were three or four, and that was enough for Ronan. They were all warm and oversized and comfortable, and they all smelled like Adam, and they all made Ronan feel safe and loved in the same way that holding Adam’s hand under the table at Nino’s did. It was a good feeling.

It was probably a little creepy, but Ronan couldn’t find it in himself to care. Adam’s sweatshirts quickly became a comfort to Ronan; a reassurance. They reminded him that, at the very least, even if Adam _did_ find someone better and move on from Henrietta, he would come back for his hoodies and Ronan would get a face-to-face explanation, because Adam would not waste forty-dollar clothes for any reason.

Within a month, it became an idle habit; an unconscious action that Ronan didn’t realize he was carrying out until it was already done. He would find himself chewing on the strings as he pored over his dad’s old copy of _Alice in Wonderland_ for the millionth time, or tucking his nose into the collar as he fed the animals, or curling his fingers into the sleeves at night because the sweatshirt was warm, dammit, and Ronan liked Virginia winters as much as he liked Virginia summers – which was to say, he despised them.

The weeks crept by, and Adam’s sweatshirts quickly began to smell like the Barns rather than Adam, but by the time Ronan noticed, he didn’t care. They were warm and big around the shoulders and soft, a lot like Adam. By that point, Ronan had basically stolen them. Snow began to fall and Ronan brought the livestock in, then settled in the house to wait. The days ticked by agonizingly slowly as Ronan waited for Adam’s winter break.

Two weeks. Two weeks, and Adam would be back and for a while, Ronan would feel like his skin fit the right way again and he would be able to tease Adam with the same breath he used to kiss him. Anxious anticipation made energy with no productive outlet crawl up and down Ronan’s spine, and he found himself pacing, even though it would be a full fourteen days before Adam returned.

_Thirteen days._

_Twelve days._

_Elven._

_Ten._

_Nine._

_Eight._

_Seven._

Seven, seven, seven. Seven days, and Adam would be home. Ronan found himself falling asleep easier and easier, found himself waking up hopeful rather than disappointed every morning.

 

Ronan was pulled unwillingly to consciousness at what he was sure was one of the ungodly hours of the morning he would have been drinking and racing at only a few months before. This theory was proved correct when Ronan cracked his eyes open and found that it was pitch fucking black. Figuring that it was just his insomnia coming back to haunt him, Ronan shut his eyes and rolled over to attempt to go back to sleep. For a moment, Ronan thought he had heard Adam laugh, but brushed it off as either eager anticipation – _only one more week_ – or sleep deprivation.

“Ronan,” Adam’s amused voice said in Ronan’s ear. “I want at least one kiss before you go back to sleep.”

Ronan squeezed his eyes tighter, a bit annoyed with himself for these sleeplessness-induced hallucinations.

“Come on, Lynch, you asshole. At least let me into the bed.”

Ronan rolled onto his back and opened his eyes.

It took a moment for his eyes to adjust properly to the darkness, but when it did, he felt a little spinny with uncertainty. Adam’s face, slightly bemused and spattered with freckles, was looking down at Ronan.

Was this a dream? Ronan did not think it was a dream. It didn’t have any of the sharp edges or taffy-like malleability of a dream, and Adam was speaking English, not Latin. But it didn’t make sense that this was reality. Adam wasn’t due to come back for another week, and his finals were that last week of school, and Adam would not skip his finals just to see Ronan. The only reason he would ever possibly miss finals week was if he was dead. Maybe. Ronan wouldn’t put it past Adam to rise from the grave to take his finals and make sure he passed.

And yet, here was Adam, and this was not a dream.

Ronan was too tired for this.

“Adam?”

“Yeah,” Adam replied, his voice surprisingly soft as he smiled. “Took you long enough to figure it out. I didn’t think I was gone long enough for you to forget me entirely, Lynch.”

“I couldn’t ever forget you,” Ronan mumbled before he could stop himself. “What are you doing here? I thought you had the week from hell.”

“I did. But I got permission from my professors to take finals early so I could come home sooner.”

Something about this made Ronan feel warm and happy. Adam had gone out of his way to come back as soon as possible. Adam had missed Ronan.

“C’mere,” Ronan grumbled, curling his fingers through the sleeve of Adam’s t-shirt and tugging. “Get down here, Parrish.”

Adam smiled and burrowed under the piles of blankets with Ronan. After a few minutes of shifting and accidentally jabbing elbows into stomachs and knees into thighs, they finally managed to get somewhat comfortable in Ronan’s too-small-for-two-fully-grown-adults bed. Adam ended up on his back, one arm slung around Ronan’s shoulders. Ronan was lying on his side, his back to the wall and his head pillowed on Adam’s chest, and he was happy.

“Are you wearing my sweatshirt?” Adam asked, his voice coloured with a laugh, and Ronan was suddenly grateful for the darkness. It hid the pink he knew was tingeing his cheeks.

“Yes,” Ronan grumbled reluctantly. After a second, he added, softer, “It reminds me of you.”

Adam smiled crookedly and pressed his cheek briefly against the top of Ronan’s head.

“I missed you,” Ronan breathed after a moment, closing his eyes. He was pleasantly drowsy, warm with the security of Adam’s presence and Adam’s body heat and the weight of the blankets. The sharp, incessant longing that had lived in his chest for so long had dissipated, leaving Ronan feeling light. It was a good feeling.

Adam huffed out a half a breath, then the other half. It was almost a relieved sound. “I missed you, too,” he murmured back.

Ronan was going to say something else, but the thought evaporated about half a second later. It didn’t matter, anyway, because Adam had already fallen asleep, his breathing even and soft, and it only took Ronan a matter of seconds to follow suit.


End file.
